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Did You Know?

In the last 8 years, DC has lost 15% of its federally-subsidized affordable housing stock.

A DC resident earning the minimum wage would have to work 120 hours a week to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

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Facts and Figures

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The Problem

The District is in the grips of an affordable housing crisis. An ever-growing number of individuals and families are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Many have been driven out of our community because they could no longer find an affordable place to live. Others are living doubled up with friends or relatives. Still others have no place to live except the streets, their cars or an emergency shelter.

In 2006, an expert task force issued a comprehensive housing strategy for the District. Priority recommendations included preserving at least 30,000 existing affordable housing units and adding at least 19,000 more.

But the District's affordable housing supply is shrinking, not growing. And more than 26,000 households are on the waiting list for an affordable place to live. Some have been waiting for 10 years.

The Local Rent Supplement Program can help get these people off the waiting list. They're still waiting because the program lacks funds to support new affordable housing development.

Unpredictable funding for the program and dwindling revenues from the Housing Production Trust Fund are also part of the problem.

What We Advocate

For Fiscal Year 2010, SOME and our coalition partners recommend:

Continue to seek additional funds for the Local Rent Supplement Program.
Establish an additional or alternative source of funding for the Housing Production Trust Fund.
Explore new tools for financing affordable housing development.